A Founder’s Story: Breaking Habits, Breaking Big, Breaking the Mold
In this special episode of WWD Voices, Jenny B. Fine, editor in chief of Beauty Inc and executive editor, beauty, WWD, interviewed Christina Oster-Daum, president and founder of Cosnova Beauty, on the company’s passion-driven success, her journey as a perfectionist, the importance of female leadership and mentoring the next generation.
Cosnova Beauty was founded on a mission to make everyone feel more beautiful by offering the best quality and innovative cosmetics at the most affordable prices in the industry. Oster-Daum said that she has seen the message resonate with her female employees firsthand, explaining that they have shown a genuine passion and expertise in their roles. Today, women make up 70 percent of Cosnova Beauty’s employees, and as such have driven a great deal of success through passion.
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Notably, Cosnova Beauty is based in Germany, where women in leadership roles within the beauty industry are well-represented, compared to other markets. And while Oster-Daum said that the decision to base the company in Germany was organic, she has noticed “getting much more positive response when looking for new employees and for expertise from women.”
Oster-Daum added that it has been of high importance to her to see Cosnova Beauty implement ways to also support the women working at the company to become female leaders and help them come back to work when they are building a family. One way of doing this, she said, is through support of child care, which is offered to both men and women with children.
For the last 10 years, Cosnova Beauty has also created an environment of mentorship through its companion program offered to employees to help develop their careers. Employees go through an onboarding process and learn about the company, processes, and different departments as well as build personal connections.
“Having a mentor and a companion makes it [easier] to be very open and to get smoothly into the company,” said Oster-Daum. She explained that it has been important for her to participate as a mentor to young women as well and just recently took on guiding a 19-year-old student for the summer. “It was a great experience [and showed] how important and fruitful it is to have ambitious young people, and in this case, a young lady bringing new ideas, not being afraid to speak up and to make us think about what a very ambitious and a person from our target [consumer] group has to say.”
During the conversation, Oster-Daum shared key learnings from her own career including a struggle with perfectionism. As an optimist, she said her unshakable confidence has helped lead Cosnova Beauty to success as the world continues to shape the new needs of the consumer.
To listen to the episode, CLICK HERE.
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